Watermarking

March 14, 2014

Claiming Your Work as Your Own

I don’t want to shock you, but there is definitely opportunity for your content to get ripped off on the Internet. Your amazing photo is just innocently sitting there on some site, minding its own business, then BAM! Stolen by a jerk! Not only is it stolen, but it’s re-posted without credit, perhaps even accredited to someone else. A lot of time and effort went into making that photo the beauty that it is. Can your photo ever find its way home again? Not easily, if ever. Because of this phenomena, many artists watermark their images so that the whole world knows where they came from.

So, let’s walk through how you can add a watermark to your images. For this, you will need your name or logo as an image file, preferably with a transparent background.

In Manage mode, select the image you want to watermark, and click Edit mode. In the Add group, select Watermark.

Click Browse to find your watermark image. To stand in as my logo, I will be using this weird wee dog as the watermark for my photography business *wink wink*, Tiny Dog Photography.

Drag the image to your desired area and resize as you like by dragging the marquee handles. Select Maintain aspect ratio when resizing if you want to resize the watermark image without distorting it.

If your watermark doesn’t have a transparent background, choose Apply Transparency. Then click the color in the watermark that you want to make transparent, or enter the RGB value.

Select an option from the Blending Mode drop-down list to specify how you want the watermark to blend into the underlying image. For this, you’ll just have to experiment with what looks best for your watermark.

Lastly, select your opacity level using the Opacity slider. This will determine how subtle you want your watermark to be. When satisfied, select Done and save your changes.

To Add a Watermark to Series of Images at One Time:

Adding a watermark to one image at a time? Nobody has time for that. You can use Batch Edit to add your watermark to as many images at once as you want.

In Manage mode, select the images.

Go to Tools | Batch | Batch Edit. In the Batch Edit window, in the list on the left, click Watermark to see the watermark options. Now, it’s important to note that this is not the same as clicking the checkmark next to Watermark. You have to select the word “Watermark” to see the options, then select the checkbox next to it to say, yes, I actually want a watermark.

Once again, browse to find your watermark image. If the watermark does not appear on the preview, click the Position & Blending tab and then click back to the Image tab.

Configure the checkboxes on the Image tab as mentioned above. On the Position & Blending tab, you will find your Blending Mode drop-down menu, Opacity slider, and Location fields, which allow you to position your watermark precisely using percentage or pixels.

(You can still position and size the watermark by dragging the marquee handles, as well, if you prefer.) You can then use the Image List tab to preview the look and position of the watermark on all the selected images in your batch.

When you are happy with the way the watermarks look, press Next on the bottom of the Batch Edit window. Under the Output Options, you can configure where you want these images to be placed, if you want to change the file names, or file format, etc. Press Next. ACDSee will then apply the watermark to the images and, when complete, you can find them in the location that you specified.

The final step is to share and set free your work as you desire, with a bit more peace of mind!